


air that we breathe

by lalaietha



Series: Renegotiations of Fate [2]
Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Telepathy, Tylendel Didn't Die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-04
Updated: 2012-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-30 14:04:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/lalaietha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A postscript to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/332515">be all my sins remembered</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	air that we breathe

"I'm sorry." The words come back unbidden. He knows Van isn't asleep. He wouldn't be able to sleep, if he were Vanyel: not with the weight of the village defenses, Tylendel himself, and everything else laid on him. Besides, when Van sleeps his breath goes lighter than it is now, and his muscles more slack. He's terrible at faking. 

They're lying in one of the side rooms in one of the largest houses inside the walls, where "large" means "more than two rooms". One of the married couples tried to give up their own bed, but Vanyel had refused and Tylendel had backed him. Instead, a spare straw-tick mattress had been found from somewhere and filled; it isn't the best bed, but there are worse, and the sheets and blankets are soft and, with both of them there, warm.

"There's nothing to be sorry for, ashke," Van's voice comes back in the dark, and Tylendel almost wants to take his shoulders and shake him, because there's such a thing as taking optimistic belief too far, even for a newly-Chosen trainee. 

He doesn't. 

"That's not even close to true, Vanyel," Tylendel says instead, voice sober. "There's everything to be sorry for." 

"'Lendel - " Van tries to start, but Tylendel cuts him off, because he needs to shut up and listen. 

"I used you and I got you hurt and I almost got us killed and I - " he still has to stop and let his mind flinch away from Gala's death. "Then I tried to do it again. I'm sorry you're tied to me. You would be better off - " 

He'd forgotten, somehow, that Van's schooling while they were in Haven had included weapons-work - and, apparently, wrestling of some kind or another. Van twists in the bed and suddenly looms over Tylendel, one hand pinning one of Tylendel's to the mattress, hip against his. Either Van's gotten stronger, or Tylendel's lost muscle - it might be that, he knows he hasn't been eating, or doing anything at all. But when Tylendel tries half-heartedly to push himself away, he can't. 

"Yfandes _never_ so much as _suggested_ I would be better off without you," he says, fiercely, as Tylendel blinks at him, and then blinks again as the wash of feeling - mostly love, and anger - from Van's mind washes into his. Blinks, and then closes his eyes, feeling them roll back a little. He bites back the moan, fights his way back to himself through the open space between their minds, the thing that both of them have had as shielded as they can for so long. "Never," Van says, again. 

Tylendel wants to think that Vanyel's lying. He isn't ready, can't encompass what it means if Vanyel isn't. He licks his lips and tries to remember what he wanted to say, grasping a minute before he finds it again. "You have to promise me something," he says. 

Van hasn't shifted, hasn't even changed the fierce way he's looking down. Tylendel tries to meet his eyes, and to keep his voice steady. It's harder than he expects, hard to look at Vanyel's face as open as it always has been here, just them, naked and in bed together. "You have to promise me," he says, "that you'll listen to her. To Yfandes. About me. Van - " he says, more to stop Vanyel's protest than anything else. "Vanyel, ashke, I don't know if I can stop. I don't even know who I am anymore." 

Van's eyes are dark. "You are Tylendel," he replies, in Tayledras, "and my love." 

Tylendel shakes his head. "And what in hell does that even _mean_ , Van?" he retorts in Valdemaran, the words coming with deep irritation for the gods-damned Tayledras and their gods-damned mysticism. "Who is that? I don't know him, because sure as nine gods' hells I am not who I was; Vanyel - " He reaches up with his free hand, laying it against Van's face. " _Promise me_ you will let her protect you from me, love," he says, just above a whisper. "Promise me so that I don't have to go away to make sure I don't wreck you." 

He thinks Van is about to argue, or deny. Then for a moment Van's eyes go distant, staring through him - and Tylendel tries damn hard not to be hateful, not to be jealous as hell, knowing Yfandes is talking to Van. 

He doesn't really succeed, but he tries. 

After that moment, Vanyel's mouth tightens and he comes back - and then nods, tightly. 

"My word," he says, the words formal, his voice dropping and flattening. And Tylendel almost laughs, hearing Withen's son's voice here, like this. Hearing the traces of Vanyel's father, here and now - Tylendel almost laughs. 

But he doesn't. Because that same stubborn iron in the blood will hold Van to this and so will his Companion and then maybe, _maybe_ Tylendel can keep from destroying this all again. 

And then he couldn't laugh anyway, because Van's mouth comes to his and Van kisses him fierce and deep, tongue pushing hard and fast into Tylendel's mouth. The aggressiveness of it is new, hasn't been there before; it's startling, but - good, yes. Tylendel closes his eyes, his free hand tangling in the hair at the back of Van's head, just above the curve into his neck. This: Tylendel could stay here forever, has wanted this and buried it under everything and now, now he doesn't have to. 

Except Van is moving down, kisses and soft, gentle bites going down Tylendel's jaw, the side of his neck, scattered across his collar-bones. Tongue brushing over his navel, and Tylendel lets go, pulls his hand away from Vanyel's hair. Has to let go, to keep his fingers from flexing and pulling when Van's hands move to his hips, holding them, and his breath dances warm beside Tylendel's cock. 

"Ashke - " Tylendel starts, because this is new. He has done this, and more than once, but Van - 

_:Don't even, love,:_ Van's mindvoice is sterner than Tylendel is used to, and the look that Van gives him, as Tylendel leans up on his elbows to look down, is more heated. For one grinding, tearing moment, Tylendel wonders whether or not this is Yfandes in him, if she's watching or listening or riding along with - and then Van takes Tylendel in his mouth and it is easy, far, far too wonderfully easy, not to think of _anything_ but that. 

He doesn't think to close his mind, doesn't think to close down, until what he gets washing back from Van (oh, gods, fuck, gods, Van is a mage now, Van is a _mindmage_ now - the thought scatters like sand in his head and he can't hold onto it) is _surprise_ , and he realizes the link between them is wide - 

And then Van, Van somehow uses it, and turns it back. Turns it back, on purpose, and now there isn't just the heat of Van's mouth, the movement of his tongue, but there is also his mind pushing against Tylendel's, engulfing what remains of his thoughts. Gentle and inescapable - not in, no attack, only absolute, engulfing love, punishing desire and want and need and, and _no_. And no. He can't do this, not right now - he can only just keep his hips from jerking, his hand, the hands he carefully kept away he lets fall to Van's hair, but to tug up, to pull him back up, _:Van, please.:_

And Van listens, enough to let him go, but not farther than that - enough to kiss him instead, but not enough to take his own mind back, and not enough not to move his hand to where his mouth had been, stroking and moving. His leg between Tylendel's, his mouth moving in a hundred breathless, soft, open-mouthed kisses over Tylendel's mouth, his eyes, while Tylendel's fingers closed on Van's arm and his body arched as he thrusts. 

Helpless between the onslaught of body and mind, Tylendel cries out when he comes - it might be Van's name, it might be something else, he can't tell and it doesn't matter. _Oh, ashke._

Van collapses on him, a little. Tylendel doesn't mind; rests one hand on Van's shoulders, the other on the back of his head, pulling Van to him. By the time it occurs to him to think that Van - 

"The echoes are new," his lifebonded says, half-amused, half-wondering. And Tylendel actually feels himself flush, and then he's laughing, but it's a raw and painful laugh. Because just now - 

Just now would be when Gala would say something snide about not getting them out of bed for the next week. And he hopes and prays to any god that will still hear him that Yfandes is not saying it, or that if she is, Van won't tell him, because he can't, right now, he can't - 

Van only pushes himself back up to lean over him, and then to kiss him. And say, between them, through the kiss, _:We should clean up.:_

But to drive out the laughter, Tylendel shifts and pulls him back down, and replies, _:Not yet.:_


End file.
